Scan barcode
mblanton174's review against another edition
4.0
It's an interesting read, a daydream journey tracing a path from Vietnam to Europe, where the most surreal and horrifying events take place in the real world. That being said, it's not a book that sticks with you in the way The Things They Carried does -- but it's worth the read.
sarahbowman101's review against another edition
4.0
Tim O’Brien writes often about the Vietnam War, in fact I think that most of his books deal with it to some degree. But Tim O’Brien isn’t obsessed with Vietnam, he is obsessed with telling a war story. A True War Story. And what does that mean? Even he doesn’t know, but through thousands of words is trying to work it out. I read and liked The Things They Carried, but I loved this book. I have picked it up several times, and put it back down based on the description, but then saw it at Half Price Books and who could resist? This book is about a war story within a war story. And the beauty of this book is in its language and construction. After I finished this book, I flipped back through to go back, to keep going, to remember and revisit. If you want to learn about The True War Story, this is a great book. If you want to learn how to write a novel, this is a great book. If you want to read a book that is beautifully constructed and takes you along at just the right speed, this is a great book. This is a perfectly constructed story…but is it the True War Story? Yes. And no.
kaitlin_dunford's review against another edition
2.0
It was only okay for me, but that's because I really don't love war books in general. The writing was good. It had the makings of a great novel. Maybe if I loved war stories I'd have loved it. But I didn't.
claudiaswisher's review against another edition
4.0
Wow. I forget O'Brien's power between his books. This one is full of all the trademark elements: authenticity of place and time, finely-drawn characters, details that could only be shared with an author who had LIVED that life. His scenes of the boredom, the pick-up basketball games, and then the sheer terror of having to 'follow the book' and go down into those hell-holes of the tunnels, leave us little doubt he has experienced all this and more.
Berlin and his buddies go after sweet, dopey, Cacciato after he announces he's deserting the war and walking to Paris. Paris? Do they pursue him because of the killing of their first lieutenant, Mr. 'go by the books even if my men are killed in the process?' Do they follow out of that stifling boredome? DO they follow him at all?
O'Brien's warping of reality, of time and place, give the war an 'other worldly' feel, exactly, I would guess, what he intended.
I went back and copied all of the chapter titles after I read...the clues are there!
Berlin and his buddies go after sweet, dopey, Cacciato after he announces he's deserting the war and walking to Paris. Paris? Do they pursue him because of the killing of their first lieutenant, Mr. 'go by the books even if my men are killed in the process?' Do they follow out of that stifling boredome? DO they follow him at all?
O'Brien's warping of reality, of time and place, give the war an 'other worldly' feel, exactly, I would guess, what he intended.
I went back and copied all of the chapter titles after I read...the clues are there!
alexis21's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
patrick_114's review against another edition
3.0
Not what I expected. I did appreciate the novel very much but I prefer O'Brien's "The Things Things They Carried" over this work.
madoran's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
jordanbates91's review against another edition
5.0
Imagination is what writers work best with. Tim O’Brien takes this to a whole new lever in his novel Going After Cacciato. Cacciato is stationed in the Vietnam was at a security outpost, the reader is brought into the adventures of him and his command squad. Cacciato is stated to have “gone AWOL,” at least to his comrades, and essentially he has. Almost everything in this story is not real; we are placed in dream sequences that we think everything is what it seems, but it is not. Cacciato’s insanity brings us an interesting story and an exciting adventure down the rabbit hole. O’Brien’s style when writing this story is not like any I have read. When analyzing this story and finding out everything was untrue shocked me, but I wanted then to write something like this. I wanted to put that thought of misconception into my writing not to trick my readers, but to make them think more about my writing.
readingpanda's review against another edition
3.0
Tim O'Brien is an author who isn't very interested in truth. Or maybe I should say the exact opposite, that he is extremely interested in it, and in fact fascinated by the concept. Either way, he's not likely to give you a straightforward, point A to point B story, and you can expect that the nature of truth will be part of the exploration. Going After Cacciato is no exception.
Cacciato is just a soldier, a guy everyone agrees is pretty dumb, who one day wanders off from their position in Vietnam. He says he's going to Paris. He has to be pursued, of course - you can't just let a deserter skip away from a war. Paul Berlin is one of the soldiers who goes after him, and the one relating the story to us. In the course of talking about going after Cacciato, Paul Berlin also reveals, bit by bit, what has happened in his war experience up to that point.
I didn't find this story as engaging as I would have hoped, but I think that may be because I read The Things They Carried before this one, and some of the same themes are explored more fully in the later work. For me, O'Brien's writing is always the star, though, particularly in the way that everything you read feels absolutely authentic and true, fiction or not.
Recommended for: anyone who's wondered if war stories are true (or if it's even possible for them to be true), those curious about the Vietnam War experience, people who like to read about the gray areas between courage and fear.
Quote: "He would stop. He decided it: He would simply fall. He would lie very still and watch the sky and then perhaps sleep, perhaps later dig out the Coke stored in his pack, drink it, then sleep again. All that was decided. But the decision didn't reach his legs. The decision was made, but it did not flow down to his legs, which kept climbing the red road. Powerless and powerful, like a boulder in an avalanche, Private First Class Paul Berlin marched toward the mountains without stop or the ability to stop."
Cacciato is just a soldier, a guy everyone agrees is pretty dumb, who one day wanders off from their position in Vietnam. He says he's going to Paris. He has to be pursued, of course - you can't just let a deserter skip away from a war. Paul Berlin is one of the soldiers who goes after him, and the one relating the story to us. In the course of talking about going after Cacciato, Paul Berlin also reveals, bit by bit, what has happened in his war experience up to that point.
I didn't find this story as engaging as I would have hoped, but I think that may be because I read The Things They Carried before this one, and some of the same themes are explored more fully in the later work. For me, O'Brien's writing is always the star, though, particularly in the way that everything you read feels absolutely authentic and true, fiction or not.
Recommended for: anyone who's wondered if war stories are true (or if it's even possible for them to be true), those curious about the Vietnam War experience, people who like to read about the gray areas between courage and fear.
Quote: "He would stop. He decided it: He would simply fall. He would lie very still and watch the sky and then perhaps sleep, perhaps later dig out the Coke stored in his pack, drink it, then sleep again. All that was decided. But the decision didn't reach his legs. The decision was made, but it did not flow down to his legs, which kept climbing the red road. Powerless and powerful, like a boulder in an avalanche, Private First Class Paul Berlin marched toward the mountains without stop or the ability to stop."
chilg1128's review against another edition
3.0
sooo... this is the first book in a while where as soon as I turned the last page to close the book, I immediately thought to myself "I'm gonna have to read that again." However, this time around it wasn't because it was such a great book that I wanted to go through all of the fun times I had reading it.
I'd read a Tim O'Brien book in high school and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was expecting something of the sort to happen again since I knew that O'Brien is famous for his war-related books. This one, however, threw me for a bit of a loop. It took me far too long to realize that there were several story timelines at play. What made it worse was that they were all mixed up in both their order along with the chronological order. The only way I even became aware was after the third or fourth chapter of the same name, "The Observation Post."
I think between the overwhelming confusion mixed with the literary metaphors at play, I was in a bit over my head with this one. Had I known that it was going to be more of a figurative piece of literature rather than just a run-of-the-mill war novel, then I may have been more impressed and probably even more intrigued by the book. But, since I am the reader that I am (one who creates some level of a pre-judgment for books I have no idea about), I set myself up for a bit of a failure on this one. Maybe in the future if I re-visit this novel I'll be a bit more keen to what O'Brien is trying to say with Paul Berlin's imaginary story that coincides with his experience in the Vietnam War.
I'd read a Tim O'Brien book in high school and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was expecting something of the sort to happen again since I knew that O'Brien is famous for his war-related books. This one, however, threw me for a bit of a loop. It took me far too long to realize that there were several story timelines at play. What made it worse was that they were all mixed up in both their order along with the chronological order. The only way I even became aware was after the third or fourth chapter of the same name, "The Observation Post."
I think between the overwhelming confusion mixed with the literary metaphors at play, I was in a bit over my head with this one. Had I known that it was going to be more of a figurative piece of literature rather than just a run-of-the-mill war novel, then I may have been more impressed and probably even more intrigued by the book. But, since I am the reader that I am (one who creates some level of a pre-judgment for books I have no idea about), I set myself up for a bit of a failure on this one. Maybe in the future if I re-visit this novel I'll be a bit more keen to what O'Brien is trying to say with Paul Berlin's imaginary story that coincides with his experience in the Vietnam War.